


Between the Lines

by Fenix21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Pre-Series, hurt!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 20:19:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3950362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were always things left unspoken between the brothers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between the Lines

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a rainy day pretty, damaged boys cuddling fic, but...well, you can obviously see what happened here, so. I'll keep working on that, but for now, enjoy the angst...I guess?

Dean rolled over on scratchy sheets and creaking springs and instantly regretted it.

Pain flared up his side and across his back, biting through the haze of sleep and leaking adrenaline into his blood that made him feel shivery and slightly sick. He swallowed thickly and bit off a curse.

‘Fuck.’

‘Dean?’

Dean felt cool, long fingers brush lightly across his chest and arms and then slide under his shoulders and very gently urge him to roll back the way he’d come when he woke.

‘Dean, you can’t lay on your back,’ Sam’s voice instructed in a whisper. ‘You’ll pull your stitches.’

Stitches. Oh, yeah. Right. Stitches. Fucking Braerwolf claws. Thing had caught him across the back when he dodged its hold last night. Lucky John had been right behind him and pumped it full of silver, or Dean would probably be in six pieces this morning instead of slightly less than one.

‘And that was my favorite shirt, too,’ Dean mumbled with an involuntary groan.

He heard Sam let out a huff that could have been a laugh except it was tinged with damped hysteria and exhaustion. He cracked his eyes and craned his neck around as far as he dared until Sam obliged him by coming around the bed to hunker down in his field of vision.

Kid looked like shit. There were dark circles under his eyes. His cheeks looked sunken, and his bottom lip was red and swollen from where he’d bit it and worried it bloody. And he was soaking wet.

Dean reached out a slow hand and caught Sam’s sharp chin between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Hey, kiddo. You look like crap. What happened?’

Sam’s eyes widened briefly as if to say, _What happened? You happened. You nearly getting yourself fucking killed happened!_ But he stayed silent and flicked his tongue over the red, raw spot on his lip and sucked it between his teeth again. Dean thumbed under it gently, drawing it back out. ‘Sam. Why are you sopping wet? You look like a drenched puppy.’

As if to prove that his brother was at least partly right, Sam pushed his clammy, cold cheek against Dean’s knuckles and let his eyes fall closed for a few seconds. 

‘Got you coffee when you’re ready,’ Sam whispered.

‘Sam…’

Sam turned his face further into Dean’s hand. Dean opened it and cupped his cheek. ‘I got in an argument with Dad.’

‘What?’ Dean looked past Sam’s shoulder, noticing the gray rain sheeting down outside their motel room window. ‘In the rain?’

Sam sighed. ‘Yeah.’

Dean was quiet a minute. He really didn’t need to ask what it was about. The hurt, angry look pinching at the corners of Sam’s mouth and eyes said enough, but he did anyway. 

‘What about?’

‘Not important,’ Sam mumbled. 

He started to pull back, but Dean reached up and snagged a handful of hair at the base of his skull and tugged gently and firmly, holding him fast. ‘Sammy.’

Sam dropped forward to his knees so Dean didn’t have to reach so far for him, not oblivious to the lines of pain tugging at his brother’s brow, and his fingers crept up over the edge of the bed and picked at the sheet and then tightened in it, twisting hard.

‘He left.’

‘Nothin’ new there, Sammy,’ Dean said evenly. He knew it wasn’t new. Sam knew it, too. But that wasn’t the issue here. 

Dean’s brain was finally starting to tick over on most of its cylinders, if not quite all of them without the aid of some caffeine, and it was pulling threads together to weave a half-heard conversation from beyond the motel room door that had been left open to waft an almost cold breeze across Dean’s bare back which was what had started him on the path to consciousness in the first place.

_'You can't just leave!'_

_'Sam, he's gonna be fine. You're being overdramatic.'_

_'He nearly fucking bled out last night! And not because of the damn wolf, but because_ killing _the damn wolf was more important to you than looking after your son!'_

_'You watch your language, son. And_ nothing _matters to me more than you boys.'_

_'Really? Cause you got a shit way of showing it…_ Dad _.'_

Dean's mind drug up the sound of a quick, hard slap and imprinted it on his brain. He squinted at Sam's lip, and then at the hot pink tinge to one side of his face. He'd thought worry had gotten the better of him making him chew his lip to shreds, and the chill outside had ruddied his cheeks, but…

_'You watch your tone, Samuel. Now, I will be back the day after tomorrow at the latest. Keep an eye on your brother. Don't let him move around too much until I get back. That wound needs time to heal or he'll rip his stitches and open it up. Got that?'_

_'…Yessir.'_

Dean swore under his breath and loosened the hand in Sam's hair to brush the tips of his fingers over the red mark on the side of his face.

'Sam, you can't talk to him like that,' he said softly. 

Sam's eyes darkened, stung at his brother's defense of the man who had nearly let him bleed to death on the cold ground not more than twelve hours ago. He sat back on his haunches, pulled his face from Dean's grip, and just watched him for an endless moment.

'I'm here, Sam. In one piece,' Dean said, trying to forestall the fight he could see building in his brother's eyes. 'Well, mostly. And that's what counts, all right?'

At fourteen, Sam was just beginning to really see the lunacy in the way the Winchester family lived. He'd taken it in his stride until this point because he'd never known any different. He didn't have any memories of a home or a mom to fight and hide from lest they find him in the night and try to suffocate him with a sense of loss so big it seemed to fill the entire world. He only knew John, and he only knew him in the capacity of a hunter. He didn't know the man who had hoisted a blonde baby boy high up on his shoulders so he could see the Christmas parade go by with all the sleighs done in greenery and lights and the jingling harness of giant Clydesdales fitted out with hundreds of tiny bells. He didn't know about snuggling between his parents and falling asleep across their laps watching a movie, or having hot cocoa after sledding with John in the snow, or helping Mary make ice tea and snap fresh green beans in the summer.

Sam only knew _this_ life and the out of context shards of what it meant to be a family that Dean had tried to pass on to him over the years in the form of instant cocoa from the microwave, mac and cheese inventively combined with whatever else they had on hand in their meager supplies, stories read from books he'd lifted from garage sales John occasioned to find something they might need at the moment or local libraries when he needed more research material…and love. 

Dean had tried hardest to be sure Sam knew that one thing, because John was shit at showing it, and the only reason Dean managed was because he had the hazy memories of four years with a loving, smiling, gentle John to hang onto and provide a foundation for all the hollow, if well intended, gestures in all the years since. Sometimes he wondered what John looked like through Sam's eyes—the fighter obsessed with revenge and pushing himself to the very edge of the envelope every damn day, drowning more and more of the man he used to be, little bits at a time, in the bottom of whisky bottles. Sometimes, especially recently as Sam's independent streak became more and more pronounced in his quickly shifting moods and the new edge coming sharp and gleaming to his tone of voice, Dean had moments of clarity so slicing and sharp that he could barely breath as he watched the two, toe to toe with one another, arguing over God knew what; and his gut tightened to the point of nearly doubling him over because he could see the way Sam's body was leaning. Away. He was leaning away from John, from Dean, from this life. He was going to leave it. Leave them. 

Dean knew that in those crystalized moments, shaped so perfectly to drive right through his heart, that he had failed somehow. 

'Dean?' Sam leaned forward again, peering into his brother's face with concern. 'I'll get the pain pills. Dad left the good stuff. You want coffee?'

Sam got up, leaving Dean and his questing, empty hand that had still been hanging in the empty air between them to drop to the bed and twitch imperceptibly with a need to grab hold and hang on because he wasn't sure anymore what was keeping him here. 

It wasn't John. It might have been once, but Dean was a grown man now for all intents and purposes, more so than any other eighteen-year-old out there, and he could have gone off on his own if he'd really wanted. It wasn't Mary. He'd wanted it to be her. So much. He'd tried to infuse his blood with the same heated need that ran through John's, but Dean's revenge was lukewarm at best and second hand. He'd been too young to know anything but loss when she died, and the want for revenge came too late and was learned by rote through lessons in hand to hand combat and how to handle firearms and whether iron or silver was most efficient in killing whatever was out there in the dark tonight. 

Sam. Sam was the reason Dean stuck it out, stayed, bore up under John's quiet disapproval as Dean lavished the kid with time, attention, even money when it came to things like books for school or fees for extra curricular activities. Sam was Dean's bound purpose for going out after dark and ganking the ghosts and killing the monsters and coming home bloody and broken and a little bit less himself every time, to the wide, relieved eyes and fluttering hands, and warm, steel-banded hugs of his little brother. Dean lived on hope instead of revenge. Hope that Sam might be able to live in a world one day that didn't have any monsters, if Dean could work hard enough and make it safe for him.

Sam came back to the bed with two cups and a bottle of pills that he deposited on the nightstand. He slipped an arm under Dean's neck and around his back with attentive care to where the bandages were, and then lifted him into a sitting position. Dean was surprised at the wiry strength hiding out in those long arms, the way Sam effortlessly moved him, his whole body working in smooth concert to distribute power and leverage where it was most needed. It wasn't like he hadn't seen Sam in action. He'd been on hunts with them, for the last couple of years John had started taking him along on the ones that he didn't think were too dangerous, and Dean had watched those gangly limbs somehow finding a rhythm and pattern that propelled the whole of the body forward like a graceful, surging tide on the ocean, all liquid power and unstoppable force. 

He'd never witnessed it up close, though, never felt it wrapped so securely around his own body.

Sam paused, looking into Dean's face again, brows creased with worry. 'Did I hurt you?'

Dean had to work his tongue around for a second to unstick it from the roof of his mouth. 'No. Fine. I'm fine.'

Sam nodded, not entirely convinced, but reached for the bottle of pills, keeping an arm around Dean to steady him as he popped the cap and waited for Dean to hold out his hand, then he picked up one of the cups and offered it.

'Got it?'

Dean grasped the styrofoam in slightly shaking fingers and nodded, lifted it to his lips and grimaced at the contents.

Sam smirked. 'I got your coffee, too, but you drink that first. All of it. You're probably half dehydrated by now.'

Dean scowled at Sam over the rim of the cup and then knocked back the water in a couple of good gulps. Sam smiled approvingly and then traded him out for a steaming cup of their crap instant coffee that, regardless, settled like nectar from the heavens across Dean's synapses as he took a few tentative sips.

'Okay?' Sam asked.

Dean nodded again. 'Yeah.'

They sat in silence for a few minutes and listened to the rain outside as it fell steady and straight and seemed to drown out the world.

'Dean, I'm sorry,' Sam suddenly whispered.

Dean looked over at him, brow quirked up. 'For what, kiddo?'

Sam picked at an invisible thread in the worn denim of his jeans then smoothed his palm over his thigh like he was trying to rub something out, keeping his eyes down, focused on his hand or on the floor or any place that was not Dean's gaze.

'I'm sorry for…'

Sam looked up, and Dean saw.

_I'm sorry for Dad leaving…I'm sorry for making him angry…I'm sorry for you being a shredded mess of stitches and bandages…I'm sorry our life is like this…I'm sorry you had to protect me and look after me and grow up like you did being my brother-father when you should only have had to worry about what to bring for show-and-tell that week or whether or not you were going to make the JV wrestling team…I'm sorry for being the center of your universe and taking it all with me when I go, and I_ am _going. Not today or tomorrow, but someday, and I'll take all the light away, and all the purpose, and leave you here alone with this crazed, psychotic, vengeance seeking man who calls himself our father but has become something too close to the things he hunts for it to be denied and…I'm sorry._

Sam flicked his tongue out over his bottom lip, hesitating on the spot where Dean now knew John's wedding band had caught it in the slap to his youngest son's face, and then he nibbled a little at the raw skin, eyes searching Dean's, trying to discern if he'd seen all there was to see in the empty space at the end of his words.

'I'm sorry for the crap coffee,' Sam said slowly, pulling a smirk across his mouth with slow precision and setting it in place like armor. 'I would have got you something decent but the nearest gas station is five miles down the road and the rain…'

'It's great, Sam. Don't worry about it,' Dean said, matching his brother's smirk with a half-hitch smile and taking another swallow from his cup.

Because Dean _had_ seen it, every word of it, and it seized his heart like a live electric current shot straight through him, and left him just as dazed and flailing. 

Dean drained the last of his coffee and moved to sit up straighter. Sam shifted beside him, pressing himself into Dean's side to keep a constant support there. Dean smiled and ruffled Sam's hair. 

'I'm gonna go get cleaned up a little.' He turned his head and sniffed at his shoulder. 'I smell like dog.'

Sam laughed, only a little forced now. 'Yeah, you kinda do. Do you need help?'

'Naw. I'm not gonna brave a shower or anything, just wipe down.' He pushed up off the bed, finding his balance with more ease than he'd honestly expected, maybe in no small part to Sam's steady hands at his waist. He twisted a tiny bit from side to side under Sam's frowning, anxious eye and tried to find his range of motion. The stitches across his back and side pulled, but John had done them close together and they felt secure, which meant the gashes had obviously been deep and bad. 

He swallowed back the image of John's stony face last night turning back to look at him from the front seat every few seconds as he drove at speeds that tested even the Impala's excellent handling on dirt roads. He barely remembered the ride. Hell, he barely remembered anything. He had sketchy flashes of the creature taking a swipe at him and his back going ice cold which seemed odd since people normally thought of wounds laid open as being on fire, but Dean had just gone numb. He vaguely recalled John's voice coaxing him as he dragged him to lay across the Impala's back seat. There was blood on John's hands. Lots of it. 

Time got pretty muddy after that, and the images turned blurry and stretched out and snapped back in his memory like taffy. Sam's pale face appeared a lot. He was hovering at the edge of Dean's vision, holding bloody, shredded clothes, and bandages, and there were tears quivering at the edges of his lashes that the hard set of his mouth would not let fall. Then he was on his knees by Dean's bed, cheek laid up on the edge of the mattress beside Dean's head, eyes watchful and expectant, one hand cupped at the top of Dean's skull and petting at his hair, the other laced together with one of Dean's laying lax on the sheets.

Dean swayed. Sam's hands tightened at his waist.

'Dean? Maybe you should just lie back down. You can clean up later, huh?'

Dean slung an arm around his brother's shoulders and pulled him in close, tucking his head under his chin. He had to lift it a little to make room now, and Sam wasn't even wearing shoes. 

'Thank you, Sammy.'

Sam settled into his brother's embrace, melting against him until there was no space between them. 'For what, Dean?'

'Thank you for…'

_Thank you for holding my hand while Dad stitched me up…thank you for keeping watch all night…thank you for worrying about me…thank you for caring if I come back…thank you for loving me and taking what love I can give and making it enough for you to live on because I know it isn't much…thank you for being the center of my everything even if you are going to take it away one day because then I can as least say I knew what it was…thank you for saving me._

Dean felt the tremor go through Sam and knew that he had heard the silent confession come up from the dark places of Dean's heart where all the most precious pieces of himself were locked away and safely guarded.

He held his brother tight for another slow count of heartbeats and then planted a firm kiss to his silken hair and pushed him away gently.

'I'm good, Sam,' he assured. ' 'Nother cup of coffee, maybe?'

Sam hesitated, eyes wide open and watery, lip bitten and held between his teeth again. Dean reached out to rub his thumb against it like he had earlier, coax it out, sooth it with a gentle stroke. 

'Sam. It's okay. I promise. It's all okay.'

Dean let the tears leak from the corner of Sam's eyes without acknowledgment because it was what the kid needed this time. No snark, no jokes, no teasing, not even an offer of comfort. He just needed his tears because sometimes it was the only way the body knew how to communicate. 

Dean gave him a gentle smile and small shove toward the kitchenette, mumbled something about getting that fresh cup of coffee, then turned away before Sam was able to find his own reflection in his brother's tears.


End file.
